Script

In today's story, Script, Alvin bravely faces a classroom bully

Today's prompt was chosen at random. As always, the story was free-written with no planning and very little editing. 

If you enjoy today's story, please share it with your friends and leave a review for Freely Written. You can also send me  a prompt suggestion, and I'll be sure to credit you in the episode. Thank you!

More about Susan Quilty

Susan Quilty mainly writes novels, including two standalone novels and her current YA series: The Psychic Traveler Society.  Susan's short stories for Freely Written are created during quick writing breaks and shared as a way to practice her narration skills before she dives into recording audio versions of her novels.

Website:  SusanQuilty.com
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The Freely Written Book: Freely Written Vol. 1
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Transcript

Below is the transcript for Season 1, Episode 135 of Freely Written, a podcast by author Susan Quilty:

Welcome to Freely Written where a simple prompt leads to a little unplanned fiction. 

[Light piano music]

Hi, friends! I’m Susan Quilty and today’s prompt is Script.

If you are a regular listener, you know that I write my podcast stories from a prompt, with no planning and very little editing. By very little editing, I mean that I often don’t even read through the story until I sit down to record it, and then I only correct typos that I may notice as I go. 

It’s a strange way to share stories publicly, since I don’t take the time to polish them. But that’s the point. Free writing is a great creative exercise. It’s fun to let my typing follow my imagination, without a plan or a worry of how it will come together. 

That’s very different than the way I write my novels. I’m a planner. I like outlines, character background sheets, maps of my imaginary towns and houses, and so on. The structure helps me keep my novels on track. Though I do allow myself freedom to make changes as the story develops. Sometimes, very big changes. 

That’s where these Freely Written stories may help me. While writing, I have an idea of how long the story will be. Part of my mind is keeping track of pacing and overall structure, while the rest can spin up characters, conversations, and settings. I usually don’t know where I’m going—and may purposely throw myself some curves—which makes it fun to pull together an ending. It also helps me feel more confident in my ability to shape a story. 

With this method, some stories are stronger than others. I like to take chances and hope you enjoy seeing where the stories lead, even if they are a bit shaky sometimes. If you want to read my more carefully planned and polished writing, please check out my novels. You can find them on my website, SusanQuilty.com, or look up “Susan Quilty” wherever you buy books. There are links in the show notes, too. 

Now, on to today’s story:

Script

Alvin had a special blue notebook that was perfectly sized to fit in the outer side pocket of his backpack. It had a sturdy cover, soft like leather, and an elastic loop to hold a pen or pencil. Alvin had a special black pen he kept in that loop. One that wrote with a smooth gel ink that let his words glide across the page. He was only nine but had already learned the joy of writing with a good pen.

Unlike most of his classmates, Alvin had also learned to write in cursive. Cursive was no longer taught in his elementary school, a policy that greatly upset Alvin’s uncle Charlie. So, Uncle Charlie took it upon himself to teach Alvin how to form his letters with their connecting lines and gentle flourishes. 

For Alvin, cursive was like writing in code. The more he practiced, the smoother his script became. It flowed across the pages in waves that would confuse any kid who might look over his shoulder during class or when Alvin was writing on the bus. 

“Why are you writing scribbles?” one of Alvin’s classmates asked during indoor recess.

Rain pattered against the large classroom windows, running down in transparent sheets as thunder sounded in the distance and lightning briefly lit up the dark and cloudy sky. 

The other kids were occupied with cards and games from the bin that was only opened when the weather was too bad to go outside for their daily break. Instead of joining them, Alvin had pulled out his special blue notebook, with his special black pen, and perched by the window where he could write about the rain. 

“They aren’t scribbles,” Alvin told the boy distractedly. He was in the middle of a thought, trying to describe the feel in his body as the rain beat down. It was a sort of echo, a rhythm of nature he could feel moving through his nerves, his veins, his inner self. 

He did not share the sensation he was trying to capture with the boy. Alvin had learned to keep thoughts like that to himself. 

“What is it then?” the boy pushed, leaning closer and talking louder. 

“It’s nothing,” Alvin said, shifting in his seat so it would seem less deliberate when he slanted the page away from the boy’s prying eyes. 

The boy was Tommy Jackson. A boy who was small for his age and acutely aware of it. He often tried to compensate by being the loudest kid in the room. While he wasn’t among the most popular in the class, his antics often caught everyone’s attention, which, to him, was nearly as good as being well liked. 

Alvin had noted Tommy’s behavior but couldn’t entirely understand it. For Alvin, attention was the worst thing he could attract. Yet here they were, Tommy’s loud questions begging to be noticed by the others. 

“Let me see!” Tommy demanded. Alvin hesitated with the page still slanted away. He knew refusal would only send the message that he had something to hide, making Tommy more insistent. 

“It’s just writing,” Alvin explained, tilting the page toward Tommy while still keeping the notebook out of easy reach. 

“Why does it look like that?” Tommy asked. His face scrunched as he peered at the flowing script. 

“It’s cursive,” another voice answered. Alvin turned to see Dinah Torres looking their way from a nearby desk. “My mom writes like that. All linked up letters. She tried to teach me how, until my dad said it was a waste of time.”

Dinah was playing a card game with Rachel Jones, who didn’t seem the least bit interested in Alvin’s notebook. She discarded a red four and urged Dinah to take her turn. 

Dinah went back to their game, but Tommy wasn’t so easily deterred. 

“Why are you writing in cursive? Got something to hide?”

“No,” Alvin answered a little too loudly. He settled his expression, adding, “It’s just faster. Once you know how.”

“Huh.” Tommy looked skeptical. “So, what does it say?”

“Nothing important,” Alvin said, debating whether to shut the notebook or continue writing as if Tommy wasn’t bothering him at all. 

Tommy was quiet, looking at the notebook while hidden thoughts turned through his brain. Alvin didn’t like Tommy’s silence, but he chose to set aside his trepidation and go back to writing. 

He put the pen to the paper and tried to remember where he had left off. The last lines he’d written said: The thrumming of my heart matches the drumming of the rain, but the feeling isn’t just in my heart. It’s deeper and fuller than that. 

Alvin liked the rhyme of thrumming and drumming. He wanted to repeat it in the following line, changing either deeper or fuller so they would rhyme, too. But it was hard to think of a rhyme while Tommy stood next to him, watching his pen hesitate over the paper. 

Deeper, steeper, beeper, keeper. Alvin frowned and tried again. Fuller, puller… His brain hit a wall as he couldn’t think of any other rhymes. He wondered if he could think of another pair of rhymes. Words that meant nearly the same thing as deeper and fuller. 

“Why aren’t you writing?” Tommy asked, pulling Alvin from his thoughts again. 

“I’m thinking,” Alvin said. Before Tommy could ask the obvious question, Alvin asked, “What’s another word that means deeper?”

“Deeper?” Tommy echoed, surprised by the question.

“Yeah, a word that means when something is deep inside of something. Or maybe another word for bigger.” 

“Bigger?” Tommy repeated, leaning to look at the page of words he couldn’t read. “Why do you need a rhyme? Are you writing poems?” 

“What? No,” Alvin responded quickly, and Tommy believed him because the scribbles were in long sentences, not short lines like the poems they read in class. “It just sometimes sounds good when words rhyme in a sentence. You know?”

Tommy did not know. And he did not know what to do next. 

If Alvin had been writing poems, it would have been easy. He could get loud about poems. He could make Alvin read them out loud and get some laughs from the rest of the class. But Alvin wasn’t writing poems, and Tommy didn’t understand what he was doing well enough to put a spotlight on it. If it wasn’t funny, the class would be annoyed instead of cheering him on. 

“Whatever,” Tommy muttered and wandered away, looking for something else to loudly mock.

Alvin relaxed when Tommy left. He looked down at his flowing script and silently thanked Uncle Charlie for giving his delicate words a place to hide. 

The End 

Thanks for listening. That story didn’t go where I thought it might. Given the prompt, I set up a boy with a notebook and thought he might be secretly writing a movie script. Maybe something based on some of his classmates. But once I wrote that Alvin was writing in cursive, my mind went down a different path. 

 If you enjoyed today’s story, please share it with your friends. Remember, you can listen to past episodes in any order, and you never know what you will find in a Freely Written story. 

While I enjoy sharing these stories for free, I would love your support with my novels. Please check them out on my website, SusanQuilty.com, or wherever you buy books. It would mean a lot to me if you would buy my books, either for yourself or as gifts. And if you have already enjoyed them, please consider writing reviews where you buy books. Thank you for your support!

Until next time, try a little free writing of your own. Let go of any planning and see where your imagination takes you. 

[Light piano music]